Media content providers (e.g., cable television providers, satellite television and radio providers, Internet service providers, etc.) often provide digital video, audio, and/or other media content to client devices of end users such as subscribers of the media content providers' services. Commonly, digital media content is provided by way of Internet infrastructure and protocols that are in place. For example, access to media content specifically requested by a client device associated with a subscriber may be provided by a media content provider system to the client device of the subscriber using a unicast packet stream including packets adhering to link layer protocols (e.g., Media Access Control (“MAC”) such as Ethernet), Internet layer protocols (e.g., Internet Protocol (“IP”)), transport layer protocols (e.g., Transmission Control Protocol (“TCP”) or User Datagram Protocol (“UDP”)), and/or other standards and protocols known in the art.
In certain examples, a plurality of client devices associated with a plurality of end users may request access to the same media content at the same time. For example, media content providers may offer media content channels (e.g., local television channels, network television channels, Internet television channels, cable and satellite television channels, Internet and satellite radio stations, pay-per-view programs, video conferences, etc.) that multiple end users may wish to view or listen to at the same time. In these examples, rather than transmitting a separate unicast packet stream to each individual end user requesting access to the same media content channel, media content provider systems may conserve computing resources by using protocols and standards for transmitting a single multicast packet stream that each client device can access. However, while use of multicast packet streams may generate large-scale efficiencies for transmitting media content by media content provider systems, the multicast packet streams may fail to address, or may even cause, other inefficiencies that occur when multicast packet streams are routed to client devices at end user premises (e.g., homes, offices, etc.) by data routers associated with local area networks at the end user premises.